Intel Server Processors: Sierra Forest gets twice as many cores as expected

At the start of the innovation in 2023, Intel doubled the number of cores in Sierra Forest from 144 delivered cores to 288. The competitor is clear: AMD Bergamo. A parallel date has been set for the fifth generation Xeon SP “Emerald Rapids”: it will be available from December 14 of this year.

Sierra Forest also comes with two CPU tiles for dual cores

Communications related to Intel Sierra Forest have already given an idea about this. With this generation in mind, the manufacturer has always said that we have to wait for the in-house exhibition for new and exciting products. This started a few minutes ago, and the cat is out of the bag: not only will there be a version with a 144-core chip, but there will also be a version with two of these CPU modules that double the number of cores to 288. Intel itself recently showed off officially Images of the 144-core model for the first time; In this version, the CPU board was in the middle surrounded by two I/O tiles.

Intel Sierra Forest vs AMD Bergamo

The 288-core Sierra Forest should be a clear statement in the direction of AMD Bergamo. In Bergamo, AMD recently started the race with small Zen 4c cores and many threads: the CPU offers up to 128 cores including SMT, that is, up to 256 threads in parallel.

AMD takes a slightly different approach than Intel. Zen 4c shrinks existing Zen 4 cores by a fraction of the L3 cache, with the new CPU chip having twice as many cores and half the L3 cache, and AMD achieves 128 cores and 256 threads.

Sierra Forest, on the other hand, is based on new E-Cores, codenamed Crestmont, or Sierra Glen, which have been specially adapted for this segment. They are also used in Meteor Lake (details), and have a slight increase in performance over current efficiency cores, but still do not offer SMT. So in the end, you simply need twice as many to come out on top in the race for the most threads on classic x86 processors.

Intel has already indirectly revealed what a large Sierra Forest processor might eventually look like through presentations at Hot Chips 2023. Not only can Granite Rapids be scaled with additional CPU tiles, the same goes for Sierra Forest.

As part of Intel Innovation 2023, Intel could reveal more details about upcoming Xeon products. It will be a while before Sierra Forest shows up: the first half of 2024 is still the name of the game. And right after that is Granite Rapids.

Emerald Rapids comes in mid-December

But before that, Intel will first acquire Emerald Rapids. Intel has always talked about launching new Xeon processors this year, and December 14 will be the official launch date. On paper, Intel Sapphire Rapids didn’t even last a year, and the official launch didn’t happen until January 10 of this year.

The biggest difference that’s really obvious is the change back from four CPU tiles with Sapphire Rapids-XCC to two CPU tiles with Emerald Rapids-XCC. ComputerBase will ask about the motivations behind this at a roundtable at Intel Innovation 2023 in San Jose later today. However, Intel today confirmed previously known rumors about a slightly larger number of cores, but above all, a larger cache, faster memory and faster UPI connections.

ComputerBase received information about this item from Intel under a non-disclosure agreement. The only requirement was the earliest possible publication date.